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Magic: The Gathering has finally shown off one of its biggest crossovers so far, with the debut of Lord Of The Rings: Tales Of Middle-earth. First revealed back in 2021, we’ve been waiting a long time to see Frodo, Gandalf, Boromir, and more show up in-game, and Wizards has now fully shown off what that entails.
This set is more than just shoving a Hobbit in MTG and calling it a day, though. The debut showed off both new and returning mechanics, plenty of alt-art, and our first look at the actual, physical one-of-one The One Ring ahead of the set’s launch on June 23.
Returning Mechanics
As this is partly a set meant to entice new players in using Lord of the Rings, it doesn’t go quite as hard on introducing brand new mechanics as other products. Instead, it makes use of older ones, reworking some to fit Middle-earth better.
Food Tokens
Hobbits are known for their love of food, and so it only makes sense that Food tokens make an appearance here. First debuting in Throne of Eldraine, Food tokens are artifacts that allow you to pay two generic, tap, and sacrifice the token to gain three life.
However, there are other ways to use Food than just mere lifegain. For instance, Samwise Gamgee allows you to use Food to return a Saga, artifact, or legendary card from your graveyard to your hand. Meanwhile, Eastfarthing Farmer will buff a creature for each Food you control.
Amass
The return of the amass mechanic from War of the Spark is a massive shock. While it wasn’t the standout mechanic of that set, it has been reworked and is now back with much more flexibility.
Instead of amassing a Zombie Army, this time you’ll be amassing Orcs. Whenever you amass, you either create a 0/0 Orc Army token and put the specified number of +1/+1 counters on it, or you can put that many counters on an already-existing Army and it also becomes an Orc in addition to its other types.
This means that this new take on amass is backwards compatible, and will work with the older, Zombie-centric ones from Nicol Bolas’ invasion of Ravnica, far far away from Middle-earth.
Legends Matter
Legendary matters will be a major theme of Tales of Middle-earth, rewarding you for playing, controlling, and even destroying legendary cards.
As mentioned, Samwise Gamgee lets you use Food to return a legendary permanent from your graveyard to your hand. Meanwhile, Gandalf the White lets you cast them at instant speed, and Nasty End lets you draw more cards if you sacrificed one.
New Mechanic – The Ring Tempts You
The only new mechanic debuting in this set relates to the Ring itself. The evil, powerful artifact at the centre of the whole saga, being tempted by the Ring enables you to give a creature an ever-growing list of new powers and abilities. While we’d already been shown how this will work, it’s always worth going over again.
The first time the Ring tempts you, you create a The Ring emblem token, and can choose one of your creatures to become your ‘Ring-bearer’. Every time you’re tempted after that, the emblem picks up a new ability, and you can choose to make a new creature your Ring-bearer if you like.
- The first time you’re tempted, your Ring-bearer can’t be blocked by creatures with power higher than it.
- The second time you’re tempted, your Ring-bearer allows you to draw and then discard a card whenever it attacks.
- The third time you’re tempted, any creature that blocks your Ring-bearer must be sacrificed at the end of combat.
- The final new ability is at four tempts, and makes each opponent lose three life whenever your Ring-bearer deals combat damage to a player.
In effect, being tempted is more like a dungeon from the Dungeons & Dragons sets than it is the initiative or monarch. Your Ring can’t be stolen or destroyed, and will remain in effect for the rest of the game once it has been made.
Alt-Art Styles
While we had already seen the Ring-like alt-art style for this set, the debut gave us a better look into how the cards are designed.
Each one features a legendary creature, both hero and villain, and shows a key challenging moment in their story. The two examples given were Merry, Esquire of Rohan, and Pippin, Guard of the Citadel. The former’s alt-art shows him in the middle of the Battle of Pelennor fields, while Pippin’s shows him facing off against Denethor in Minas Tirith.
This Ring showcase style can be found in all booster packs, including Draft, Set, and Collector’s boosters.
The Nine Nazgûl
Though strictly not an alt-art style the same way the Ring Showcase frames and borderless Scene cards are, Tales of Middle-earth will also include nine different variants of the Nazgûl card, to reflect each of the nine.
The neat thing about this is that the card specifies that you can play up to nine copies of Nazgûl in your deck, allowing you to run all nine of them if you want.
The One Ring
We also got to see the one-of-one The One Ring card, in the flesh. Announced back at the MagicCon sneak preview in February, there will be one exclusive art copy of The One Ring, found in a single English language Collector’s booster pack. No other copies of it will be printed, making it already one of the rarest Magic: The Gathering cards ever printed.
The debut showed off the actual card, before it was placed in a booster pack. It showcased the foiling, which is found both on the frame and also on the Elvish text circling the ring, giving it an almost glowing appearance.
It was also confirmed that this isn’t just the only copy of it being included in Collector’s boosters, but also the only one that will ever be printed. This puts the probability of pulling it at less than 0.00003 percent.
Commander
As Commander is Magic’s most popular tabletop format, it makes sense that Tales of Middle-earth is going in hard on its Commander subset. Alongside four preconstructed decks, a huge number of powerful reprints are being given the Middle-earth treatment, exclusively for Commander products.
Riders Of Rohan
The first deck is Riders of Rohan, a white/blue/red deck headed up by Éowyn, Shieldmaiden. Combining the forces of Rohan and Gondor, this is a Human-centric go-wide token deck that takes your Humans, and rewards you with yet more Humans in return.
Food And Fellowship
We don’t tend to see a lot of partner in preconstructed Commander decks, partly because the mechanic is considered difficult to design around for Wizards. However, it has done it here, with a white/black/green deck led by both the white/black Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit, and the green/white Sam, Loyal Attendant.
This deck is the one to make the most use of being tempted by the Ring, with the main strategy being defining Frodo as your Ring-bearer, while using the Food Sam makes to keep tempting every turn.
Elven Council
When Elven Council was first revealed, it was easy to assume this was going to be an Elf-focused deck. Instead, it looks like the ‘council’ is the word to really pay attention to here, as it is a voting-matters deck run by Galadriel, Elven-Queen.
It will be full of cards that make you and your opponents vote, while also ensuring you’ll profit no matter the outcome. For example, Galadriel will let you either be tempted by the Ring or draw a card, depending on which way the vote goes.
The Hosts Of Mordor
The final deck focuses on the dark forces of Middle-earth, with the blue/black/red Hosts of Mordor. Ruled over by Sauron, Lord Of The Rings, this is a graveyard recursion deck that both pulls creatures out of your graveyard, and also amasses a huge army of Orcs at the same time.
It’s also noteworthy for being a commander focused on killing other commanders outright, rewarding you with being tempted by the Ring whenever an opponent’s commander dies. This could make it slightly frustrating for opponents to play against, but when you’re Sauron, such petty concerns shouldn’t trouble you.
Box Topper Reprints
On top of the four decks, booster boxes of Tales of Middle-earth will include a number of Lord of the Rings-themed reprints of some of the most powerful cards in the Commander format. Despite being found in boosters, these cards all use the set code LTC, meaning they’re strictly part of the Commander-legal subset.
These include some huge names in Commander, such as The Ozolith (now as Argonath, Pillar of Kings), Cloudstone Curio (Elessar, the Elfstone), Minamo, School at Water’s Edge (Dol Amroth) and even Ancient Tomb (Balin’s Tomb). These are all highly sought-after cards, which makes picking up boxes of this set even more appealing than it was.
As these are skinned reprints, they do not count as brand-new cards. For instance, in Commander, you can only run one copy of The Ozolith, whether it is the original Ikoria print or the Argonath, Pillar of Kings version.
Holiday Special Products
Alongside the main release in June, Tales of Middle-earth will be receiving a special Holiday rerelease, with new products.
Heading up this line is the Special Edition Collector’s Booster. This is mostly the same as those launching in June, however it will not include serialised cards. Instead, it will include a new foil treatment not seen before, and five rare or mythic rares per pack.
Alongside it will be four Scene Boxes. These each include foil borderless scene cards that, when put together, will make a full scene (much like those seen in the regular set). It will also come with art card versions of these without the card text, an easel to display them on, and three Set boosters for Tales of Middle-earth.
Finally, Middle-earth will also be receiving a second Jumpstart set, with Jumpstart Vol 2. These will still use cards from the main Tales of Middle-earth set, however will include new themes to play with, and likely a few exclusives to spice things up.
All three of these products will launch on November 3.